The Internet, and specifically the World Wide Web, has made travel planning quite easy. Travel planning websites have enabled travelers to research, plan, and book travel without the assistance of a travel agent. In particular, booking transportation options, such as an airline flight from city A to city B or a rental car in city A in order to drive to city B, is readily performed using a travel planning website. Using the travel planning website, the traveler can easily determine the cost of such an airline ticket or rental car reservation.
Often, a traveler is planning a trip to a destination that is a far enough distance from the departure location that the traveler is considering flying, but for which driving may be a desirable alternative for the traveler. Additionally, the traveler may be considering either driving the traveler's own vehicle, which is either owned or leased by the traveler, or renting a vehicle to drive to the destination. A leased vehicle is typically leased from an automobile manufacturer or a leasing service company, and is typically leased for a period of months or years. A rental vehicle is typically rented from a vehicle rental agency, and is typically rented for a period of days or weeks. The traveler may consider renting a vehicle, rather than driving the traveler's own vehicle, for many reasons. For example, the traveler's own vehicle may be older and less reliable than vehicles from a rental agency (termed rental vehicles), which tend to be fairly new. Additionally, the traveler's own vehicle may be less fuel efficient than some of the available rental vehicles. Or the traveler may desire a specialized vehicle for the trip, such as a van or convertible, depending upon the cost of such a specialized vehicle.
It may be difficult, however, for the traveler to know the accurate and complete cost of driving the traveler's own vehicle. The traveler may know, for example, the fuel efficiency of the traveler's own vehicle and can therefore calculate the anticipated fuel costs for a particular trip. However, the traveler may not know, or even be aware of, other costs incurred by driving the traveler's own vehicle, such as the reduction in value of the vehicle due to the increased mileage of the vehicle and the “wear and tear” on the vehicle resulting from the drive. As such, it may be difficult to compare the cost of driving the traveler's own vehicle to the cost of other transportation options, such as renting a vehicle or flying, in order to determine which method of transportation is least expensive. Additionally, the traveler may have difficulty factoring other considerations, such as the likelihood of mechanical failure of the traveler's vehicle, into the decision of which transportation method to use.
As such, there is a need for a system, method, and computer program product capable of comparing the cost of driving the traveler's own vehicle to the cost of various other transportation options.